Wedbush Morgan video game industry analyst Michael Pachter has told Game Informer that the Nintendo 3DS will continue to thrive despite smartphones and tablets, but the PlayStation Vita will “die a slow, painful death”. Pachter reiterated that Nintendo owns the dedicated handheld space and Sony misjudged the size of the market.

On the state of the PlayStation Vita:

The sales are horrible. My model says the Vita sold 4.2 million last year. It’s a pretty small number and I don’t think they are going to build a business selling 4 million a year — and that number could go down. Vita is a little bit too elegant and a little too expensive. I always feel like I’m going to break it. But then it has relatively few games because they are complicated to make and the market is so small. Very few publishers are spending money to make them. You had Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, that cost Ubisoft a lot. It’s a whole new adventure. Sony will spend the money with their internal studios, but you’re just going to see [Vita] die a slow, painful death.

It’s super high-end in the market; it’s too expensive for a casual gamer. I know that phones are subsidized, but you can get a smartphone for free when you renew your contract. You can get an HTC free, or spend $200 on a Vita. It’s too [hard] to pass up the free phone. They are never going to get the casual end of the market.

On whether connectivity with PlayStation 4 could boost Vita sales:

I don’t quite get it. First they were selling it as a controller, which was lame. I would rather just spend $50 on a controller. They were selling it as a controller because…I have to turn off the game on my TV because American Idol is on and I have to continue my session on my Vita? That’s what a DVR is for, you can watch American Idol later. I think most people who have competing concerns about use of the console versus watching TV have their console on a different TV from where their wife is. I agree those are cool features, but it’s limited.

On the future of Vita and Sony in the handheld market:

There is no future and they couldn’t do any better [than Vita]. The market is what it is because of Nintendo. Nintendo built the market and Nintendo has the best name in handhelds. I just think [Sony] misjudged the size of the market and launched it into this s—storm of mobile destroying the casual end of dedicated handhelds. And Nintendo’s not giving up much share on the hardcore side, because they have three games to every one Sony game, and they are good games.

Pachter is not considering a very essential point. Developers are making money on Vita, and not on 3DS. Nintendo is the only one making money on 3DS.

Indie developers are earning a ton on Vita, by selling a premium product. Smartphones and tablets have a hard type selling anything, there’s too many free stuff going on. The purpose of a business is to have customers. Someone that just freeloads is not a customer.

You can see that Vita is making a lot of money because developers are searching for any game to bring to it. Studios that localize games are bringing any shitty japanese game they can, because it’s selling at a good price.

3DS won’t get Minecraft and barely will get any japanese games. Yoshi and Kirby? Sure it will get those, do you plan to keep playing only Nintendo games? Vita will even get Danganronpa and Hatsune Miku

Because Nintendo’s fanbase has been reduced to only Nintendo fans, who buy mostly only Nintendo games.

People had to vote to show Level 5 there was interest in bringing Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright to the west, Monster Hunter 4 is still being widely ignored. Why is there so little interest in bringing these games over? Because sales haven’t been worth it

Meanwhile, on Vita, it got Sweet Fuse, a visual novel targeted to female gamers about Inafune’s niece, Sorcery Saga, a game about a curry god for Christ sake. Why are publishers so interested, even desperate, to bring games to a dead portable?

LMFAO!!!!!!3rd party do not make money on the 3DS?So Monster Hunter 3 and 4 selling a combined 9 Million in Japan did not profit Capcom?LOL
3DS sold 45 Million, Vita 7 Million…………yeah the Vita sure does make developers lots of money!!!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Youre not looking at the big picture. Hes not entirely right, but hes not wrong either.

The vita has become a hotspot for Indie games, and thats for a reason, they actually sell. UBI might had trouble with AC:L but because a lot of things factored, the small install base, the lag, the frame rate, the price ect.

As for the 3DS its doing great. The only bad thing I see is the small/low amount of sales some 3rd party games have.

He meant that is costs too much money and is more complicated to make games for it for developers. If you ever tried burning a DVD size file on a CD-Rom you know its not easy. It can be done if you’re dedicated, but you have to compress and convert for hours at a time just to get one movie or whatever onto that limited CD-Rom.

Now technology has improved quite a bit to the point you can store a picture of every person on earth on a thumb drive, but developers still have to gram a lot of game into little space and cut down on things like Frame rate and other stuff I can’t think of off the top of my head.

Nintendo knows their limits on the 3DS and do not try to release too many big title games on them. Sony is like “We release this on the PS3 and PS4, it must also be released on the Vita as well!” Whereas Nintendo is like “We released this on the Wii and/or The Wii U. Do we need to also release it on the 3DS? Well I guess since its [Insert game franchise] we should try to do it.” They aren’t foaming at the mouth trying to release every game they release on their home console(s) onto their handheld like Sony is.

And you are wrong about Nintendo being the only one who makes money on the 3DS. the 3DS has Assassins Creed, Splinter Cell, Sonic and a few others legendary third-party gaming franchises.

The Vist is to Sony as the Wii U is to Nintendo. Bad idea, too expensive to make, buy and too complicated and expensive to make games for.

Funny, it works quite well for me. It does exactly what I’d like it to do. When the wife is using the TV for something, I can hop on the vita to continue my game. No different then using the second screen on a Wii U. How is this a joke? If anything they paid homage to Nintendo.

the playstation vita is about as successful as a shit stuck in a toilet. it shares the same toilet as the fail u. they will get married and will get buried 6 feet under the earth to comfort the virtual boy and dreamcast, just like those two before.

the playstation wiita and the same old shit games and garbage for u, the recent failures.

If Nintendo does “Off TV play,” it’s a “Gimmick,” if Sony does it, it’s amazing.

You may not be among the masses, but everyone who claims Nintendo has “Gimmicks” is just flaunting ignorance.

1.) Motion Controls were highly profitable.
2.) Off TV play is convenient and fun.
3.) 3D games make me smile and make a game with lower red graphics more engaging.
4.) Duel screens. (yeah, fuck-yards called it a gimmick) has now taken gaming by storm, with every other R&D group trying to duplicate Nintendo’s experience.

Funny how that works eh? Wii with the motion controller is crap, Playstation Move is amazing. Seems that if the name Nintendo is attached to it, people instantly have this “OMG! IT’S GARBAGECRAPASSBLAHHH!” mentality around it. Sad really.

This isn’t the first time Pachter has said these type of things about the Vita. He doesn’t even like to be asked about it anymore because he has said time and again that it’s a dead machine.

The media and industry members have said many, many, negative things about Sony over the years; especially this past gen. It’s mainly since the PS4’s announcement that positive things are being spoken.

It’s funny because while the point that Pachter is making is right – Vita will not be a commercial success – his reasoning is wrong. He obsesses over smartphones and to me, smartphones have nothing to do with why the Vita is failing. Being too high priced against a significantly superior competitor was the issue. Also being a follow-up to the PSP, which I know made a lot of people lose trust in Sony for handheld consoles.

Pachter is not considering a very essential point. Developers are making money on Vita, and not on 3DS. Nintendo is the only one making money on 3DS.

Indie developers are earning a ton on Vita, by selling a premium product. Smartphones and tablets have a hard type selling anything, there’s too many free stuff going on. The purpose of a business is to have customers. Someone that just freeloads is not a customer.

You can see that Vita is making a lot of money because developers are searching for any game to bring to it. Studios that localize games are bringing any shitty japanese game they can, because it’s selling at a good price.

3DS won’t get Minecraft and barely will get any japanese games. Yoshi and Kirby? Sure it will get those, do you plan to keep playing only Nintendo games? Vita will even get Danganronpa and Hatsune Miku

Indies do get money on 3DS, and a lot of them receives higher profit for the 3DS version than the other versions. Also, it has Vocaloid games, and if you want anime games, there’s One Piece, Attack on Titan, etc.

im getting sick of the fanboyism I love Nintendo and I have a vita and love that as well :) I feel it is a shame that it gets overlooked sold my ps3 becuz of all the shovelware and now that ps4 is out budgets have been cut on ps3 releases ive seen a lot of glitch messes lately :( and that 2 is sad. I have a wii u and find it extrememly fun and relaxing. I don’t need games full of blood, rape and profanity for it to be fun. I may not get a ps4 theres like 30 shooters coming out this year for it and im not a shooter fan :( I am looking forward to Mario kart 8 though it looks nice :) and my bro was like u wont get to play final fantasy 15 and im like geez ff 13 brought the whole game off the rails now so I will not look forward to ff15 now let the series die b4 it bankrupts square enix with all flash and no gameplay :( I want to play a game not a movie :( now dragon age looks promising :)

Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I kinda agree with Pachter this time. I may be a Nintendo fan (its why I’m here in the first place), but I’m also a Sony fan too. I own the Vita and I gotta say aside from an unusual amount of great fighting games the Vita more or less has been in a dry spell for a very long time!

The last game I looked forward to getting on the Vita (besides a few fighting games) was Dragon’s Crown, about a half a year ago. The handheld is one big PS3 port machine, which I’m somewhat fine with. But if that’s the case why don’t we get ports other than fighting games, like Saints Row 4 or Tomb Raider (would have been a perfect time to do so with the whole ultimate edition). Well at least we’re getting FF X/X-2 and Borderlands 2, but still it ain’t enough…

Guess I’ll mostly stick to my PS3, 3DS and Wii U for now! At least those are getting several great games this year, lol!

I think that what we can learn with the 3DS is that if you advertisse it well and bring great exclusives for it on their first two years, technically you don’t need third party support from Western Developers. You don’t need an anual FIFA (or PES), or any other sport genre games, you don’t spin offs from console specific franchises, you don’t need that shit on your game device to make profit from it. That’s what Vita should have it by now. That’s what SCE should have learned long ago with the success of the Nintendo DS.

hope that Nintendo can do the same with Wii U. Nah who am I kidding, it’s already bringing really good first party content this year :)

and the vitas still getting minecraft. Sadly proof that sales sometimes arn’t important lets face if the can have minecraft on tablets going to add infinite worlds in the next update they can do it on 3ds and its selling like a beast.

Sales are important to publishers from a software sales standpoint. Hardware, not so much. The 3DS sells a ton of systems, but the games that generally do well on the system are all Nintendo first party games and a few other games here and there (like a couple of games from Capcom, Square Enix, and Level 5). On the other hand, several publishers and devs have spoken about the high attach rate of games to the Vita. While they might not do tremendous numbers like the 3DS’ big hitters – these lesser known games sell better on the Vita than if they were on the 3DS.

One example is that of Retro City Rampage, an indie game. The Vita version sold more than every other version – combined. We’re talking, Xbox, PC, Wii, 3DS, etc.

Sony has screwed up big time with the Vita in a few areas – mainly marketing. That’s the *main* area where they’re having a problem and I fear it’s too late for them to turn it around. If they had good, focused, and constant marketing/advertising for the system, it would be in a completely different situation – regardless of what games are on the system (take a look at PS4, for example).

So anyway, 3DS is doing great, it has great games and more power to Nintendo. The Vita is a great system that’s doing poorly, sucks for Sony. Either way, I’ll continue to enjoy games on both systems. *shrug*

your statement is completely true but you missed my context i said sales sometimes don’t matter like in this case i mentioned because mojang seems antinintendo and no im not counting there comment that the have a good relationship with nintendo because talk is cheap and action speaks volumes like how they haven’t release any content on nintendo platforms.

Dude is a joke. Besides, I think the market generally doesn’t like developing for Nintendo because developers are LAAZZYYY!!!
Take example; Minecraft was announced for PS4 moments after the E3 announcment but yet the Wii U has a FAR superior controller for console Minecraft. Is Minecraft coming to Wii U? No, and it’s also skipping the MUCH better (sales wise) 3DS and going to Vita. Strange…huh?
They’re probably thinking it is too much work to make a 3D game or a game that uses a second screen.
Anyways, Minecraft isn’t even that great.

I really don’t understand the Vita hate. Its an amazing handheld console, I’ve enjoyed every game I have played on it. This is coming from a 3DS lover and owner since the year it came out. I got my Vita a few months back, and its really a console that deserves to sell better. I really can no longer decide which I love more. On 3DS I get all those great Nintendo exclusives such as Kid Icarus, Mario Kart, super mario 3D land, virtual console games and many more, and eshop titles like vvvvvv and Shantae, but on PS Vita I get Uncharted, Little BIg Planet, Gravity Rush, PS All Stars, DOA 5 Minecraft(soon!!!) Terraria, and a large selection of PSP and PS One Games.

It really has nothing to do with price and everything to do with appeal/marketing. The PSP which did much better started out exactly the same. High price (in fact, the same price point) and proprietary memory cards that were also expensive. But the PSP had a lot more media attention and advertising to both kids and adults. The Vita has almost none and the marketing it does have is less than savory.

Apple, Microsoft, and even Nintendo have proven over time that it’s not always price, but effective marketing and powerful content that will move their products.

There wasn’t a lack of games. Either you didn’t know about the games on the system, or you just didn’t want them. The Vita has had releases for it at *least* once a month since its release. There was maybe one or two months that had nothing.